“You knew better than that,” Barie answered. “Come on.” She took his arm. “The orchestra’s going to play. You aren’t going to dance with anyone but me tonight. And after tonight you’ll never dance with me as long as you live.” She stepped closer and he took her in his arms as the squeaky, tootling orchestra assembled by Mendon Carter at one end of the room took up its beat. II It wasn’t a good orchestra and never would be. It was just some of the farm boys who liked to get together on Saturday nights and beat out a little whimsey. Sometimes it was at RiGrand; sometimes at Rillo or Worth-Dallas. At best it was a five hundred mile round trip, and of course the Watch Police knew all about it. They didn’t expect anything better from Agros, Sixth Rating. They were doing something called “The Lass at the Mech-Shake Ball.” Barie bounced happily to its senseless, repetitious rhythm. Rick felt the warm touch and vibration of her body against him, but he couldn’t keep time. “What’s the matter?” Barie said finally. “Don’t you want to dance with me tonight?” To everyone but him it seemed like a time for dancing. “I want to get out of here,” he said. He took her out to the patio under the open sky, where the stars were so sweet and clear it made something ache inside a man. They wouldn’t look like that anywhere else in the world, even if you roamed the world over. He stopped with Barie just beyond an arbor, from which they could see the distant sheet of restless water against the horizon. He touched her and drew her close to him. She looked up, smiling, and patted his cheek. “I don’t think you want to go very badly,” she said. “Am I supposed to?” “It’s like growing older every year. You may not want to, but it happens just the same.” “You mean there’s nothing we can do when a machine a thousand miles or more from here says one day that Rick Theron is to leave the land he loves and go to a city he never wanted to see and there be paired with a Mech he never wanted to know?” Barie laughed softly and pressed a little closer to him. “Rick, you talk so silly. I guess that’s why I’ve always liked you. Even the first time we met, when Dad took me with him to Rillo to talk about cattle with your father. I remember I thought I’d never seen a boy who talked like you. I remember how you spoke of the cattle and the land as if they were your very own. You were nine then. Do you remember?” Didn’t she know? Didn’t she know he remembered every glimpse he’d ever had of her, every sound her voice had made in his hearing? He gripped her arm tightly in his big, rough hand. His eyes swept the fields and the grassy plain that led down to the sea. “Is there anything wrong with having and owning something for your very own?” he demanded. “Who’d want to? You’re hurting my arm, Rick.”